U.S. Kills 11 Villagers in Air Raid, Afghan Officials Say

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —  A U.S. air raid in southern Afghanistan killed 11 villagers, including four children, Afghan officials said, but the American military said it killed five militants in the weekend raid in Oruzgan province.

Abdul Rahman, chief of the Char Chino district in Oruzgan, said Monday that the attack occurred Sunday night in Saghatho, a village where he said U.S. forces had searched for insurgents and made several arrests.

The victims were outside a house, and a helicopter was hovering nearby when “a big plane came and dropped bombs.”

“They were simple villagers. They were not Taliban. I don’t know why the U.S. bombed this home,” Rahman said by telephone.

The provincial governor, Jan Mohammed Khan, confirmed Rahman’s account that four men, four children and three women were killed in the American attack. He said U.S. authorities told him they found ammunition in a search of the village. During the search, “the people were afraid, they started running,” Khan said.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a U.S. military spokesman, said that a warplane killed five armed militants north of Deh Rawood, a Oruzgan town where the American military has a base, but that he had no more information on the exact location or time of the incident and no word of civilian casualties. Saghatho is 25 miles north of Deh Rawood.

Hilferty said an AC-130 gunship attacked the men when they left a house frequented by insurgents. “They were running away from a known bad-guy site,” Hilferty said.

The attack brought to more than 50 the toll of violent deaths since the ratification of a post-Taliban constitution Jan. 4, most of them civilians.

The constitution is to help rebuild a state shattered by war and bolster President Hamid Karzai, the only declared candidate in the summer election.